Results for “denial of rejection”

Songs

Forget About It

Alison Krauss

A breakup song built on a paradox: the narrator repeats the command to forget as a way of proving she can't. Every dismissive…

denial as coping unresolved heartbreak performed indifference

I Will Possess Your Heart

Death Cab for Cutie

An extended, deliberately monotonous instrumental build frames a lyric spoken by someone who refuses to accept another person's…

obsession denial of rejection unreciprocated desire

Another Brick In the Wall, Pt. 3

Pink Floyd

This is the moment PinkInk's protagonist Pink completes his self-imposed isolation, rejecting comfort, chemical or human, as a…

emotional withdrawal self-destruction disguised as independence accumulated trauma

The Clock

Thom Yorke

A short, jittery meditation on denial in the face of looming crisis, built around the image of someone stopping or turning back…

denial time and mortality powerlessness disguised as control

Needles and Pins

Ramones

A cover of the 1963 Jack Nitzsche/Sonny Bono pop-soul standard, reworked by the Ramones into buzzsaw punk while keeping its…

heartbreak wounded pride denial

Automatic Stop

The Strokes

A brisk breakup song built around a love triangle, where the narrator's dismissiveness curdles into something closer to guilt…

romantic betrayal denial emotional detachment

We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin'

Simon Jäger

A minor, mid-60s pop-soul pastiche in which a narrator scrambles to talk a partner out of leaving, insisting the relationship is…

denial romantic panic possessiveness disguised as devotion

Inside and Out

Feist

A cover of the Odyssey disco hit, reworked by Feist into a slower, torch-song lament about loving someone unfaithful and…

infidelity obsessive devotion self-erasure in love

Levitz

Grandaddy

A quiet, defensive song about withdrawal from social life in favor of self-imposed isolation, disguised by early Grandaddy as a…

isolation avoidance technology as substitute for connection

Jack of Speed

Steely Dan

A portrait of a man consumed by amphetamine addiction, told at a cool remove through a narrator warning a woman close to him to…

addiction denial warning/escape

Fake Empire

The National

A quiet, waltz-time song that uses childlike, storybook imagery to describe willful escapism, both personal and political. Its…

escapism denial numbness

Pink Turns to Blue

Hüsker Dü

A quiet, devastating account of finding a partner or friend dead from an overdose, sung by Grant Hart in a flat, stunned voice…

addiction and overdose grief and helplessness loss of innocence

Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely

Hüsker Dü

A breakup song built on a contradiction: the narrator claims he wants distance from an ex-partner but keeps monitoring her…

ambivalence after a breakup emotional self-protection denial

All for Leyna

Billy Joel

A young narrator describes a destructive, one-sided infatuation using imagery of physical danger — electrified rails, hidden…

obsessive infatuation self-destruction adolescent isolation

Elephant

Jason Isbell

A narrator sits with a dying friend in a bar, trading jokes and old songs to avoid naming what's killing her. The song is a…

death and denial friendship vs. desire gallows humor

Mysterons

Portishead

Mysterons opens Dummy with a woozy, disorienting address to someone caught between denial and defiance. Beth Gibbons' vocal…

denial and repression guilt and judgment futility of desire

The Eraser

Thom Yorke

A fractured, glitchy meditation on trying to erase someone from consciousness only to find them multiplying under the pressure…

denial and obsession the futility of erasure suspicion and manipulation

Shadow of a Doubt

Sonic Youth

A chance meeting on a train dissolves into a hazy, possibly murderous conspiracy between the narrator and a stranger, with the…

complicity and denial desire as danger dream logic

Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before

The Smiths

A breakneck, self-aware confession that treats romantic disappointment as a repeating accident nobody can prevent. The title's…

self-repeating heartbreak denial and accusation masochism and self-punishment

Ain't Got No Haters

Ice Cube

A boast track built entirely around denial and inversion: the narrator insists he has no enemies while spending every verse…

self-mythologizing wealth as armor longevity and legacy

Hear My Train a Comin'

Jimi Hendrix

A blues fantasy of escape, built around the image of a train that will carry the singer away from rejection and poverty into…

escape and departure romantic rejection poverty and social judgment

Billie Jean

Michael Jackson

A first-person account of a man accused of fathering a child by a woman he insists was never his lover, told as a paranoid,…

paranoia and fame denial and guilt seduction and manipulation

Evil

Interpol

A murky, incantatory song built around two women's names -- Rosemary and Sandy -- that Interpol never fully reconciles into a…

complicity and denial seduction as manipulation guilt and judgment

Sheela-Na-Gig

PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey turns the offer of a woman's body into a confrontation, borrowing the name of a medieval carved figure to skewer male…

female sexuality and shame rejection and humiliation the body as spectacle

Inheritance

Talk Talk

A short, largely instrumental hymn from Talk Talk's most spacious record, "Inheritance" uses fragmentary pastoral imagery and a…

ecological loss denial and complacency spiritual longing

Breakdown

Mariah Carey

A song about the gap between public composure and private collapse after a sudden breakup, built around a title hook that…

emotional concealment heartbreak and denial performing composure

Next Time

Laura Marling

A meditation on ecological dread and personal complicity, built almost entirely from the phrase 'it feels like,' as the narrator…

environmental collapse complicity and denial self-reproach

Lost

Frank Ocean

Told from the perspective of a drug-trafficking boyfriend, "Lost" dresses a story of exploitation and denial in the glossy sound…

complicity and denial glamorized crime exploitation disguised as love

Don't Tell Me (What Love Can Do)

Van Halen

This is a defiant, almost reckless assertion of self-determination, delivered through a string of extreme hypothetical choices —…

free will vs fate rejection of moral instruction self-destruction as autonomy

Miss You

The Rolling Stones

A disco-inflected blues about romantic obsession, where a narrator's loneliness is undercut by the party noise and distraction…

obsessive longing denial and self-deception urban loneliness

I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)

Chet Baker

A standard from 1939 (words and music by Jane Brown Thompson, published as a discovery by Hoagy Carmichael) becomes, in Baker's…

denial as self-protection involuntary memory seasonal association with loss

You Should Probably Leave

Chris Stapleton

A late-night seduction song built on reverse psychology, where the narrator repeats a warning to leave while doing everything…

temptation and self-denial desire versus restraint vulnerability disguised as control

It's All Over

Johnny Cash

A short, direct breakup song built around a man arriving at a lover's door already expecting rejection, and the internal voice…

heartbreak self-address and inner conflict denial versus acceptance

Sorry Somehow

Hüsker Dü

A breakup song built entirely on protest and denial, where the narrator insists he's fine while the sheer repetition of the word…

denial and self-deception emotional armor breakup as legal dispute

Run With the Pack

Bad Company

A defiant kiss-off anthem built around the image of running free from a controlling relationship or authority. The narrator…

escape and freedom distrust of authority independence

(Don't Go Back To) Rockville

R.E.M.

A country-tinged plea to someone about to leave town, in which the narrator's stated reasons for wanting them to stay keep…

fear of abandonment small-town stagnation vs. escape emotional denial

Campus

Vampire Weekend

A hazy, morning-after vignette about running into a college crush across a campus quad and pretending not to care. The song…

youthful infatuation denial and pretense class and cultural markers

London Calling

The Clash

A blitzkrieg of apocalyptic headlines delivered as a radio broadcast, "London Calling" imagines a city besieged by nuclear…

nuclear anxiety urban decay disillusionment with youth culture

Off the Wall

Michael Jackson

A pulsing invitation to abandon the grind of daily routine and lose yourself in dance, this title track sells liberation through…

escapism nightlife as liberation rejection of convention

See No Evil

Television

The opening track of Marquee Moon works as a manifesto of pure appetite and willful blindness, its narrator declaring immediate…

desire and impatience willful ignorance denial of consequence